Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hello all,

I am living in south texas and well I am really tired of wasting water on traditional gardening. So Ive been researching aquaponics for about the last year. A little bit about me, I have a small 8 acre homestead in rural south texas. I have kept many fish before both fresh and saltwater setups I have had a complete reef setup which broke my heart to take down. lucky I found people to adopt my corals and fish. Anyhow after doing the traditional gardening and during the summer months water consumption is crazy. Also the idea of growing fresh fish as well as veggies and fruit excites me. My largest concern is maintaining water temps without a chiller and I am trying to set up the system to run off 1 pump. Anyhow I have been scratching my head on this for shallow or deep fish tank, etc. I know I will be shading the tank and possible grow beds due to the lovely HOT south texas sun. However any ideas I will gladly accept.

Welcome to the forum Ballardjr2001

Considering you're in south Texas your winters should be pretty mild even though you may get to freezing once or twice a year. I guess it really depends on what kind of fish you want to grow. Bluegills and Catfish can take lower temps as long as the water doesn't freeze. If you're thinking Tilapia you might have a long enough grow out season to get them up to size before it gets too cold. Lots of others to chose from but that's part of the fun .

Cheers

Thanks scotty I was looking into channel cats as well, they want an arm and a leg for a fillet at our local stores and was looking to sell some to my coworkers to help offset cost of the system as well as feed family. our winters down here are pretty much a joke we got 2 days of 32 or 31 temps last season. My biggest issue I see is keeping the water from getting to hot, which I know will help with a deep FT but any other ideas minus a spray bar to aireate and cool the water can anybody think of a shading the FT to keep it cool.

Might be able to partially bury or completely bury either the sump or the fish tank. The grow beds act to transfer a lot of heat into the water so shading those that you can will likely do some good (of course you can only do this if the plants don't need all the sun they're getting). The timing of when you run the pumps could also help since it's cooler at night - Gunagulla might have some information on some of this in his thread. You might also be able to use evaporative cooling if you don't mind losing some of the water - A Bakki shower or trickle tower might lower the temp a bit.

Howdy Ballardjr2001!!! Another South Texas newbie here! My system is really small and completely shaded on my patio with growlights. But due to the size, still sees pretty wild temp swings through the day. Unfortunately, even though it is small, it's still to big to setup in the house (according to the wife). :-)

i have a below ground 100gal fish tank in the green house and I get some pretty big temp changes. 5-6 f degree changes a day. I read somewhere you should keep the change under 4 degrees f a day. I think adding another tank of water might help keep it more stable.

In Texas, I would think you need to be below ground. How much water do you plan to have?

and insulate the heck out of it. plan to cover it too (so leave clearance).

Look forward to seeing your progress

Hi all, thanks for the replies sorry been away doing a small vacation in south padre island. good times. anyhow I am looking at a 500g water storage tank with the top cut off for the FT, and 300g Rubbermaid trough for a sump. I plan on having the sump buried 3/4 into the ground. the FT is black which I have been told helps to radiate heat at night which sounds odd cause I know during the day it will soak in the heat, I plan on have the FT and sump under a roof for total shade from the sun, I am also looking into buring the FT half way to ease in access to the top. I am going to try and run 2 grow beds with media, a flood tray with rafts, and a couple pvc NFTs with net pots. I have planned and replanned multiple times on the layout since of the size of the system I am running, also I am going to try and run all this off one pump with gravity feeding everything back to the fish tank. Once I get started buying matierals and building I will be taking pics to post.

hey yall, im from south texas also, san juan to be exact. im looking for others in my area that i can get with and check out other systems. im looking to expand mine. i currently have a small nft that leads to a couple of grow beds. if anyone wants to share some knowledge with me, that would be great. hope to hear from someone soon. take care.